The heavier the flak, the closer you know you are to the target. Which is why the mainstream media is so relentlessly attacking new media.
Trust in the mainstream media is plummeting – and why wouldn’t it? It’s one thing to suspect that the media are liars; it’s another to see them doing it so shamelessly right in our faces. Even worse when it’s in grovelling service to the worst people in the universe.
Only a fool, of course, would unquestioningly believe independent media, as well. Social media has more than its share of shonks and liars, too. But it also has brave, fiercely independent media willing to tell the truth in a time of universal deceit.
Consider, for instance the repeated denials and ‘fact checks’ over widespread reports of a stabbing in Stoke-on-Trent. From AAP, for instance:
A widely viewed claim online that two men were stabbed at an anti-immigration protest in Stoke-on-Trent, England, is false, according to local police.
That’s the lede. It’s followed by a screenshot of the video and the text reports of axes and hammers used, with a big, red, “FALSE” banner over it.
So, nothing happened, got that? Except…
Buried seven paragraphs down, where they know no one will read it, the report admits that the victims were “were hit with a blunt object”.
In other words, a hammer.
Video also clearly shows gangs of Muslims chanting “Allahu ackbar!” and waving swords, hammers and machetes.
Now you know why the MSM hate independent and social media so much. Exhibit A, The Times’ Janice Turner:
History is full of ultra-rich men manipulating governments and public opinion for profit. Usually this process, as with Facebook’s influence on past American elections, is done covertly then largely denied.
Is she talking about the “conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that [was…] the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans” during the 2020 election? The one that Time openly bragged about?
The rest of The Times’ jeremiad is the usual farrago of narrative buzzwords: “far-right”, “disinformation”, “racist”, blah blah blah. But, then there’s the really hilarious clangers like this:
Musk not only normalised disinformation, he incentivised it. Accounts with a commercial focus get paid for clicks even if they tweet lies, making conspiracy theories that sweep the world in minutes cash cows.
Which she immediately follows up with her own misinformation-laden conspiracy theory:
Far from dialling down his trolling, he ramps it up, baiting a Labour government because its online harm bill might mean he has to rehire all the expensive moderators he sacked.
Or because it’s an Orwellian censorship bill which turns free speech into a crime.
If self-reflection was an Olympic sport, the MSM wouldn’t even qualify. Having been regularly attacked for disputing the ‘transgender’ narrative, you’d think Turner would be a little more conscious of the desperate necessity of free speech.
None of this, by the way, should be taken as any kind of love for Big Tech. Least of all Meta/Facebook. But, instead of relentlessly attacking their competition, it might behoove the MSM to consider why people are increasingly turning away from them and to social media instead. Even the undeniably awful Zuckerberg empire.
A groundbreaking new study probing the habits of Australian social media users debunks Meta’s big lie that news has no importance to their platforms.
For the first time we can say with absolute confidence that Australians overwhelmingly consume need-to-know news on social media, with more than 40 per cent of us citing it as the reason we are motivated to use social media daily, with the number rising to 60 per cent for gen Z and 53 per cent for millennials […]
It exposes Meta’s long-held, misleading assertion that “news makes up only 3 per cent of what people around the world see on their Facebook feed” as a cynical joke.
Except that it doesn’t. Just because between 40–60 per cent of people use social media for news does not logically mean that 40–60 per cent of what users consume on social media is news.
Tellingly, the Australian article doesn’t link to the original survey, which was commissioned by News Corp itself, making it difficult to check their claims. In fact, the study seems to be next-to-impossible to find.
But other studies provide some insight. According to marketing company Genroe, some 52 per cent of Australians use social media for news (slightly lower than the global average of 55 per cent). But just 25 per cent say that social media is their main source of news – which is far below the global average of 35 per cent. Australians are more likely to use social media for work (30%) than as their main source of news. Nearly twice as many Australians (44%) use social media to research brands and products.
Tellingly, too, the Genroe data shows significant scepticism about the trustworthiness of social media as a news source, as well as the MSM.
If Australians don’t distrust social media as a news source quite as much as they do the MSM, well, perhaps the MSM might want to pause and reflect, instead of just flinging poo at their competitors.
